How do you know if SEO factors are holding you back in rankings?
-
Hi there!
I have been working on improving a site for almost a year now, and though we have made great strides in ranking for many relevant keywords our site is hovering at the bottom of page 2 and fluctuates from position 14 to 18 for almost a year. I am pretty prompt at addressing HTML improvements suggestions in WMT, but don't know where I should focus my limited time to get the most results. Competing websites have more backlinks than we do, but content is very thin and I don't think they update or add new content every week like we do. Please help! Am I missing something obvious?? Thanks in advance
-
It depends on how you work and your relationship with the client. I guess the first step is identifying issues and then finding the right person to fix.
If you look around you'll find plenty of (free) plugins that can help you if the platform is Wordpress.
That list is not complete just some main points that usually do some good, and it is in no particular order.
This is a must - https://moz.com/blog/technical-site-audit-for-2015
-
Candice
It sounds like your site is ranking as it is. The first principle is always do no harm. If you clearly identify a spam link - then disavow. But you are through the big updates and it sounds like the links have an organic origin - so not high from the information on the priority list.
Obtaining backlinks - require some strategic considerations. I will suggest a few easy options. Check out your link profile and see what links you can change from nofollow to follow. Might be just a phone call or two. But most importantly i would have a staff meeting - pay for the pizza... then explain backlinks to all the staff & make the staff part of the solution as well. Demand the boss get some editorial on the business and a backlink!
You cannot do everything - share the load.
Michael has identified page speed. That is correct - a big one, aim for under 2 seconds.
Hope that assists.
-
Thanks Michael,
Looks like I have a lot of work to do...
I know our page speed is better that the site in number 1 position, should I move on to the next steps in order that you've listed? Sort of an aside, would you normally take care of all these things yourself or do you work with the developer? I sort of fell into my position and am responsible for Adwords, Content, Copywriting, and everything in between, I didn't build the site (wordpress) and am not comfortable with modifying CSS files needed to speed up page etc. Thank you.
-
I have some opportunities on the backburner but agree I need to set out a clear strategy/plan and work towards goals on a regular basis. Currently WMT shows 137 RD but most of those are picked up from the old domain which has been 301'd. Moz shows 8 RD and Majestic shows 16. I'm always on the fence about using the disavow file as I'm not sure if the 301'd links carry the same weight (most of them are not very good). I've heard that jumping the gun on the disavow can sometimes do more harm than good. Should I just move on and work on getting better quality links or start disavowing first. We do rank well for our most specific relevant search term but I'm trying for the highest traffic/competition keyword for a year now with only an increase of 5 positions.
-
Secondary to John's response I would be meticulous in squeezing the very best in:
- all aspects of page speed
- ensuring only the URLs you want are indexed (no tags, query strings etc)
- no redirect chains
- reduce/remove 404s
- reduce/remove 301s
- sitemap is accurate and weighted correctly
- check the cached URLs (text only) are showing the text and not swamped by other stuff on the page.
There is other stuff but these sometimes throw open other issues to look at.
-
Without checking your site quality relevant backlinks sound like the main concern. Do you have a backlink strategy in place? It does take time...
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Looking for an SEO Mentor
I do in-house marketing for a medium sized luxury architectural design firm. I have a good understanding of the moz platform and general SEO but would like to findsomeone to provide regular guidance and answer some specific questions regarding our SEO. Specifically, we want advising on keywords, blog content, and link building. Ideally we'd like to engage a consultant (remotely) on an hourly basis. We'v have had very poor experiences with big SEO firms so that’s definitely not something we’re looking for. Best,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WorkshopAPD
Caio0 -
Lightboxes and SEO
Do lightboxes (AKA popup boxes when you click "learn more" type CTAs) have any negative effect on SEO? We are looking at revamping our sites to have more of a tiled approach, and a lightbox with summary content popping out with additional CTAs, directing to pages with more information or free trial pages. Is there any downside to this approach from an organic perspective? is there anything specific to keep in mind when creating these if not?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Chris81980 -
Looking for SEO advice on Negative SEO attack. Technical SEO
please see this link https://www.dropbox.com/s/thgy57zmmwzodcp/Screenshot 2016-05-31 13.25.23.png?dl=0 you can see my domain is getting tons of chinese spam. I have 410'd the page but it still keeps coming.. 7tnawRV
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mattguitar990 -
Rank Without any back linking ?
Hello, I am thinking , I will rank my site without SEO . I will add quality content on my site . Will not do any backlinking ! Can anyone suggest me if it is really possible. I know some guys or some websites those are ranked without any SEO attempts. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | businessowner0 -
Volusion SEO
I have an SEO setting on our Volusion e-commerce store enabled, it is titled "Enable full URL for Home Page Canonical Link (include /default.asp)" I am questioning whether or not this should be enabled for optimal SEO performance. Can anyone provide any advice on this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PartyStore0 -
How to rank product pages?
Hi guys, Please advice me on something improving my product pages ranking. We are doing well for head terms, categories but not ranking for product pages. We have issues with product pages which I am think is hard to tackle. For instance we have duplicate products (different colors), duplicate content internally (colors) and from manufacturer websites. Product pages linked from sub-category i.e. Home > Category > Sub-Category (20 per page) using pagination for next 20 and so on. Product pages linked internally via widgets that says other Similar products, featured products etc. Another issue with our product pages is that we are using third party reviews platform and whenever users add reviews to product pages this platform creates an hyperlink to different anchors which is not relevant to product. Example - http://goo.gl/NUG652 Can somebody please give some advice on how to improve rankings for product pages. writing unique content for thousands of pages is not possible. Even our competitor not writing unique content.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Webmaster_SEO0 -
Not ranking on Bing but is on Google?
Hi What are the main differences between Bing and Google in terms of ranking sites? My site is ranking well in Google but in Bing it is very low down and does not deliver much traffic. In Bing webmaster tools there are no warning messages and I had sent in a sitemap back in 2011 and 77 pages are listed, but I had not submitted a URL could this be why my pages are not ranking highly? Or does anybody have a checklist on what a site should offer to get ranking on Bing?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ocelot0 -
SEO for Global Navigations
I did my first SEO audit from the book SEO Secrets by Danny Dover on my new website at http://melo4.melotec.com:4010/ In the book he says to disable Javascript and see if the global navigation still works. So when I did that the dropdown menus in my navigation don't show. I'm assuming this is a problem but when I check the cache text only version of the site, the dropdowns are in the text only version. Are their any experienced SEO's out their who can weigh in on this issue? Should I have my developer redo the navigation without any javascript? Thanks, Shawn
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Romancing0